


Grow

by Eloarei



Series: OP rewatch short fics [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Character Study, Dialogue Light, Minor Canonical Character(s), Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-15 23:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11815998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloarei/pseuds/Eloarei
Summary: Helmeppo is able to take care of himself, but when his father returns home with a promotion, he finds he suddenly doesn't have to anymore, and that's the weirdest part about moving to the Marine base in Shells town. Without any responsibilities, he becomes bored, and any of the positive attitude his mother might have left him with goes straight out the window.





	Grow

**Author's Note:**

> I started rewatching One Piece recently (again), so I decided to do a short fic about each of my favorite less-popular characters (or ships). Helmeppo is totally one of my favorite characters; I love him, so this was fun. And I've written Cobymeppo a bunch of times, so I didn't let that be the focus here. It's really just a hint.

He hadn't seen his father for weeks when the man finally came home, grinning like a fox. Or maybe it was like a wolf-- pleased, and predatory, even through the wide metal jaw that he certainly hadn't had when he left home. But Helmeppo hadn't seen his father in weeks, and maybe they hadn't had much to say to each other in the past couple of years since his mother's death, but he threw down his schoolwork and ran to him anyway.   
  
“Dad, you're home! What happened?”   
  
What had happened was an act of heroics, said the marines who came to help them move all their things the next day. Morgan had bravely fought and captured the infamous pirate captain, Kuro. The brigand had bested everyone else in a bloody battle, but Morgan (now  _Captain_  Morgan) had prevailed and hauled the pirate in to be executed. That was why he'd been promoted, and why they were now moving to a nearby island, to a town called Shells, to live at the marine base there.   
  
Morgan took his new job very seriously-- far more seriously than he'd ever taken parenthood. He fell easily into the role of leader, relishing the obedience of his underlings, and his son fell into  _his_  new role, if not  _quite_  so easily, then not with any particular difficulty.   
  
It was only strange for a little while, for a few weeks maybe, to be living someplace other than where he'd grown up. But they'd given him such a nice room, high up in the tower with a view like he'd never seen. He could see miles of ocean waves sparkling in the distance. They let him decorate the room to his heart's content, with rugs and curtains fancier than even the nicest things anyone in his old town had had. Helmeppo had been homesick the first night, but after that anxiety faded, it wasn't especially hard to get used to the luxury.   
  
It was harder, actually, to get used to his father being around so much. Not that they spent any more time together now than they had previously, because Morgan was still a fairly solitary sort of man (and so was his son, by nature or circumstance or perhaps both), but Helmeppo definitely  _saw_  him more. In the past, Morgan was often gone for days or weeks at a time, sometimes a month or more while he was out at sea. Now, they saw each other daily, usually several times per day. Morgan didn't always acknowledge his son when they passed in the halls, but it was still definitely different from not seeing him at all.   
  
Perhaps the most different thing of all was having people at his beck and call. He'd gone years mostly relying on himself, after his mother had passed away. When Morgan was gone, if Helmeppo needed something he'd go to one of the other townspeople or figure it out on his own. At twelve years old, he'd considered himself basically an adult anyway, so having to get by without a mother or father wasn't too hard. Cooking and cleaning were pretty basic, and he'd picked up most of the necessary skills from his mom when he was younger. (He even managed to cut his own hair, using his mother's clever bowl trick.) He got by just fine for a couple years before Morgan came back with his promotion, and even though Helmeppo  _could_  take care of himself, he suddenly didn't  _have to_ , and that was the weirdest thing of all.   
  
Food was handled quite skillfully by an actual team of chefs down in the kitchens. Cleaning duty was a rotating roster that all the lower-ranking marines were on, so Helmeppo didn't have to do that anymore either. Laundry, mending, even shopping for new things when he needed them-- there were people who could handle all that, and would do so if he just asked.   
  
(He kept cutting his own hair, though. It felt too personal to let one of the marines do it for him.)   
  
In truth, with very few responsibilities, he got sort of... bored. And when he got bored, Helmeppo became a brat.   
  
He was always a pretty well-behaved kid before. He'd never really been disciplined, because he'd never really needed it. Like any child, he had his moments of whining, moments where he didn't appreciate what he had and what his parents had had to go through to get it for him, but he was never any more rude than any other kids he knew. When his mom asked for his help with chores, he helped. When she told him to do his schoolwork, he focused on his schoolwork. And, for the most part, he didn't complain. Not too much, and not more than was normal.   
  
But mom wasn't around anymore. And dad, despite how often Helmeppo saw him-- well, dad wasn't around anymore either, if he'd ever been. There was no one to tell him what to do, and everyone to do what he told them. And it was all because of how strong and brave his father was, how great. Morgan was fond of reminding people, not that Helmeppo was likely to forget why they'd moved up in the world. It was thanks to his father. Everyone knew this.   
  
There was no one to tell him no, and everyone to tell him yes, so he started pushing his boundaries. What could he get away with simply because his father was so well-respected? What would people give him?   
  
The answer, he soon found, was  _nearly anything._   
  
And, honestly, it wasn't nearly as enjoyable as he kept thinking it should be.   
  
With every month that passed, he felt a little more lonely. Funny, how he could feel so much more alone in a giant navy base stuffed to the brim with energetic soldiers than he ever had in their quiet little house in their quiet little town, even when he had literally been alone most of the time. There, at least, he'd felt his mother's spirit lingering in the dust motes sparkling in a shaft of warm afternoon sun. Here, he didn't feel her at all. He didn't feel much of anything.   
  
He missed her. And, honestly, he missed his father too. They hadn't spoken much since she'd died; they hadn't spoken much since before she'd died either. But there had been times, when he was young and small, when his father had actually seemed happy. He'd pulled his little mop-headed son up onto his huge lap and told him stories, or toted him around on his shoulders around the town. They'd been close, sometimes. He knew it was long gone, but still he couldn't help missing it. His father was great. Strong. Respectable.   
  
Gone.   
  
And then he really  _was_  gone, not just in a metaphorical way. That rubber freak and his pudgy pink-haired sidekick had come and shook things up. What a mess.   
  
Oh, he'd stewed in visions of revenge for a few days, most certainly. How  _dare_  they do, well, everything that they'd done! How could they just come into his town, waltz around like they owned the place, and... and not  _fear_  his father? How? It was as if they'd never had it drilled into their heads just how great he was.   
  
He joined the marines the next week. Officially, anyway. He'd already been taken in by them after Morgan was defeated and thrown in jail, 'demoted' to chore boy, as if he'd had some sort of rank already and hadn't just been a well-polished barnacle attached to his father's name. The new captain had treated him just like any other soldier who'd maybe been behaving a bit badly.   
  
All in all, it was about as much as he could possibly ask for. (Well, he could ask for more, sure, but he was pretty sure they'd just toss him out a window now, and without 'I'll tell my father!' to land on, he'd just break his neck.) That energetic pink-haired kid, that Coby _,_  was  _more_  than he could ask for. He certainly didn't ask for him, but he got him anyway. The kid decided they ought to be friends nearly immediately, apparently forgiving and forgetting that Helmeppo had almost killed him. It was a strained relationship for a while (on Helmeppo's part; Coby seemed perfectly at ease), but it smoothed out, and they found themselves bonding over suddenly being responsible for an intense number of chores around the base, which Coby handled enthusiastically, and Helmeppo handled grudgingly (because he'd gotten lazy in three years, and even if he hadn't, well, cleaning up after a hundred full-grown men was a lot harder than cleaning up after a single teenager), though they both took to the chores with determination.   
  
Three years was sort of a long time to be held to such low standards, to have no responsibilities, and Helmeppo knew it was going to take a very long time to break the habit of playing the spoiled son, if he  _ever_  managed. Luckily, Coby didn't seem to mind his griping; he must have known Helmeppo's protests were hollow. He wasn't surprised that Helmeppo was actually good at cleaning, that he could cook, that he was comfortable doing chores once he got into a quiet, focused groove where he could forget that the last few years had ever happened.   
  
He let Coby cut his hair for him though, because taking on all those chores  _and_  keeping up with that bit of personal maintenance was... just too much for him to handle, surely. The boy did a good job (he'd been cutting his own hair for at least the past year, he said), and he didn't even have to use a bowl to get it that shape.   
  
Still, when the next month came around and Coby offered his hair-cutting skills, Helmeppo declined. It was time for something different, he thought. There was nothing wrong with how he'd always done it; his mom's clever trick had worked just fine, and Coby's version was even better, but maybe it was time to let it grow in a direction of its own choosing.   
  
A couple awkward mid-length months later, when Helmeppo wasn't sure if he'd made the right choice, if maybe he ought to have cut it back after all, Coby gave him a hair clip-- an elegant lacquered black and gold thing to hold it back out of his face when he was training.   
  
“Long hair suits you,” Coby said with as sunny a grin as ever.   
  
Helmeppo hadn't thought about just clipping it back, but now he had to agree: with the clip in place, it suited him just fine.


End file.
